"Forty-five percent of voters say they agree with Trump’s claim that Clinton's email scandal is worse than Watergate."

According to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll (conducted after Comey's letter to Congress).

I wonder if people being polled today really know enough about what really happened in Watergate to use it as a standard of comparison. I remember growing up in a time when Teapot Dome was the standard of comparison. Worse than Teapot Dome was what people said, but no one ever quizzed them about Teapot Dome.

Nixon was a contemptible, horrible man — as we knew him, not personally, but from press reports. And so we came to understand that Watergate was the epitome of a scandal, which was convenient, because we lived through it, and then we never had to feel embarrassed about not knowing much about Teapot Dome.

But you kids today — Watergate is for you what Teapot Dome was to me — the symbol of presidential scandal, to be used in cogitations about whether something new is worse. So thanks, everyone, for answering Politico's question.

Now, can I add a little subtlety? Do you remember how Watergate looked on the eve of the 1972 election? We knew about the Watergate break-in when we went to the polls. Here's how we voted:



Here's a Watergate chronology. The break-in occurred in June 1972. The burglars, caught in the act, were indicted on September 15th. Nixon had made an announcement on August 30th that his counsel John Dean had done an investigation that determined that no one in the White House was involved, but on September 29th, WaPo reported that Attorney General John Mitchell "controlled a secret Republican fund used to finance widespread intelligence-gathering operations against the Democrats." On October 10th, WaPo reported:

FBI agents have established that the Watergate bugging incident stemmed from a massive campaign of political spying and sabotage conducted on behalf of President Nixon's re-election and directed by officials of the White House and the Committee for the Re-election of the President.

So that's what people had to think about when we reelected Nixon in the biggest landslide ever. (I was 21 and it was the first time I was eligible to vote, though the voting age was suddenly 18. All that youth vote — which represented a lot of opposition to the war (and, especially, the draft) — wasn't enough to stop Nixon. Like everyone I knew, I voted for McGovern.)

The news that there were audiotapes of White House conversations didn't come out until July of the following year, and without these tapes, Nixon would have hung onto the presidency. The slow roll out of the Watergate scandal went on for more than a year after that before Nixon resigned. It was August 8, 1974. Almost 2 years after that landslide election.

So let's look back in 2 years and see how Hillary's big trouble looks compared to Watergate. But if you want to compare it to Watergate now, try comparing it to how Watergate looked on the eve of the 1972 election. And think about what it was like to go through those 2 years from landslide election to forcing the President to resign. What an ordeal! But I'm not saying that if Hillary Clinton gets elected — even by a slim margin — that she'll be swamped by scandal the way Nixon was. The press won't be straining to take her out, and for all the wars we are fighting, there's nothing like Vietnam.

"Hillary Clinton talks more like a man than she used to."

Headline at the Washington Post (illustrated by a photo of Hillary doing that gaping maw laugh, which men don't do). From the article:

Women rarely act “like women” to achieve power and influence in politics. Women aspiring toward political leadership are more often expected to adopt masculine styles of behavior in order to get their points across...

My analysis of Clinton’s rhetoric draws on research conducted by psychologist James Pennebaker of the University of Texas at Austin. Pennebaker and his colleagues have discovered that men and women tend to speak differently — not necessarily in the content or topics of their conversations, but in the use of seemingly unremarkable “function words,” such as pronouns and prepositions...

In general, women tend to use pronouns (you, theirs), and especially first-person singular pronouns (I, me), more frequently than men. They also use common verbs and auxiliary verbs (is, has, be, go), social (friend, talk), emotional (relieved, safe, kind), cognitive (think, because), and tentative (guess, maybe) words at higher rates than men.

Men, on the other hand, tend to use first-person plural words (the royal “we”), articles (a, an, the), prepositions (of, to, under), big words (over six letters), words associated with anger (destroy, kill), and swear words ([redacted]) more frequently than women....

Well, fuck.

Hillary Clinton has not held a press conference since December 4th, when she answered 7 questions.

"That must change, and what better moment than immediately, given the news that FBI Director James B. Comey has recommended that no charges be brought...."

What kind of President would she be, hiding from the press like this? The email problem itself arose out of a strange and deeply flawed secretiveness. How is this quality acceptable in a President? I lived through the Nixon administration, and I've never seen anything like this in a person who claims to be presidential material.

Is she thinking: f I speak, I will sound guarded, phony, stilted, and evasive, so it won't even work, so why take the risk?

Meanwhile, Trump is garrulous and convivial — the opposite extreme. I see he's getting criticized for continuing to talk about the shape of a star in an image he tweeted. The theory is supposedly that he should shut up about that and proceed to a new topic-of-the-day. As if the star would be forgotten by his opponents! It will forever be on a list of evidence that will be thrown out as proof that he's a bigot. But he's advised to stop defending himself.

"Just chillin' in Cedar Rapids."

Via Legal Insurrection, which deems it "embarrassing" and "cringeworthy." I say it's one more permutation of the political artform pioneered by our great cultural benefactor, Richard Nixon, when he said "Sock it to me?"

On the Hillary interview, James Taranto highlights a "nonsensical" remark about immigration and quotes something I said about Richard Nixon.

In yesterday's Best of the Web, Taranto analyzes Hillary Clinton’s CNN interview and says a lot of interesting things, including:

Keilar asked a specific question about immigration policy and got a nonsensical reply....

Mrs. Clinton: ...The city made a mistake, not to deport someone that the federal government strongly felt should be deported.... This man had already been deported five times. And he should have been deported at the request of the federal government.

Cities, of course, cannot deport aliens; that is exclusively a federal responsibility. Sanctuary cities are those that, by policy or practice, refuse to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing immigration laws—for instance by forbidding police officers from inquiring about criminal suspects’ immigration status. It’s unclear if Mrs. Clinton is herself confused about all this or is cynically speaking in gibberish so as to confuse the voters.

Somebody really ought to try to pin down Mrs. Clinton about her opinion of sanctuary cities. It's not just an oddball San Francisco thing. There are many sanctuary cities, and I think it has to do with some serious policing issues that you shouldn't just mouth off about.

And I'd like to see some connection to an issue that figured large in the 2012 presidential election: Arizona's heightened get-people-deported policy. (You may remember that the Obama administration fought this to the Supreme Court and won.) At the time, I asked "What's the best position for a 2012 candidate to take on the Arizona approach to immigration enforcement?" In that post, I reminded people that back in 2008, it was an immigration issue that shifted the primary race toward Barack Obama: Hillary came out in favor of states giving driver's licenses to undocumented aliens.

Anyway, back to Taranto. He ends with:

Even when dealing with...  fluff, Mrs. Clinton was laughably noncommittal: “It may be more appropriate to look at the $20 than the $10. I don’t know. We’ll see.” As for SNL: “I think I’m the best Hillary Clinton, to be honest. So I’m just going to be my own little self and kind of keep going along and saying what I believe in and putting forth changes that I think would be good for the country.”

In response to which blogress Ann Althouse quips:

Be my own little self . . . Is that something her people say behind the scenes, something like “Let Nixon be Nixon”? But Nixon never said: “I’m just going to let Nixon be Nixon.”

Never mind that, try to imagine Nixon saying “I’m just going to be my own little self.”

I'd have trouble imagining Hillary doing a little-me routine if I hadn't heard it.

Anyway, I'm not sure the phrase "Let Nixon be Nixon" is sufficiently embedded in the public mind for my use of it to be understood. It doesn't google well (like, say "I am not a crook").  I believe it's what Nixon's people said to each other as they worked on how he could present himself in the 1968 election. He had an awkward, weird quality that could not be expunged and that would only get worse if he paid attention to it. I remember that problem and non-solution from the book "The Selling of the President," but I can't find "Let Nixon be Nixon" in a search of the book. And Meade is telling me the phrase is "Let Reagan be Reagan." The phrase "Let Reagan be Reagan" does google well. (For example there's a 1987 NYT column that begins "'Let Reagan Be Reagan' has long been the cry of the President's conservative supporters.") My confidence fades, but I feel that "Let Reagan be Reagan," like many other let-X-be-X phrases was built on the original, which was "Let Nixon be Nixon."

"Oh, she's likeable enough. She's famous for being likeable enough."

Something I said, after Meade said something, as we watched highlights from that Hillary interview that was on CNN last night. We watched the whole thing last night, and I'm sorry I didn't live blog it and produce truly fresh observations. If I remember correctly, my exclamations last night included: "Wow, she's terrible," "This is with her hand-picked interviewer!," "This is a softball interview and she's coming across as so withholding," "That constant head-bobbing with that smile — it's like her people worked with her about looking like she's tolerating hearing questions and that's the best they could get her to do."

I did make some notes...



That's not an 11 after "I can only tell you." That's my count of how many times she used that phrase: twice. It was twice within a short space of time. I was motivated to start making notes because: What a horrible go-to filler phrase! She's coming across as guarded and withholding, so she shouldn't be saying something that expresses the idea that there's more but she's not going to reveal it. I know she thinks she's saying: This is actually the whole story. But we suspect her of holding back, so it seems as though she's honest enough that she inadvertently let the truth slip out in that phrase. She knows she's not supposed to tell the whole truth, and it feels as though she's operating under instruction from her lawyers: For each possible controversy: Only tell X.

(I want to coin the word "onlytell" — in the style of gainsay. Did you hear what Hillary onlytold in that interview?)

Hillary was prodded about the email, and she burst into what felt like a well workshopped 2-part response. Part 1 was for you legalistic sticklers:

"Now, I didn't have to turn over anything. I chose to turn over 55,000 pages because I wanted to go above and beyond what was expected of me because I knew the vast majority of everything that was official already was in the State Department system."

Part 2 was for the good people, the likeable people, the ooh-I-hate-lawyers-shut-up-lawyers people:

"Now I think it's kind of fun. People get to see a real-time, behind-the-scenes look at what I was emailing about and what I was communicating about." 

Fun! She thinks it's kind of fun! I mean, obviously, she wants you to move into the "fun" mentality. Isn't this a treat, peeking behind the scenes at Hillary and Huma chatting about that darned fax machine? At the very end of the interview, she once again displays this sense of "fun" that you'll probably scoff at because you're such a jerk:

So I'm just going to be my own little self and kind of keep going along and saying what I believe in and putting forth changes that I think would be good for the country....

Be my own little self... Is that something her people say behind the scenes, something like "Let Nixon be Nixon"? But Nixon never said: "I'm just going to let Nixon be Nixon."

Ah, here's the whole transcript. I can show you how "I can only tell you" came up twice within a very short sequence. This happened near the beginning of the interview, after the first couple questions, which were about whether Hillary would, like Bernie Sanders, raise taxes. Hillary had deflected that inquiry with a statement that she "will be laying out" her policies and is "going to be telling" us what they are, and as to whether raising taxes is even "on the table," she's going to be "making a speech about my economic proposals on Monday." That's when I started exclaiming "She's so withholding!"

BRIANNA KEILAR:  I'm wondering if you can address a vulnerability that we've seen you dealing with recently.  We see in our recent poll that nearly six in 10 Americans say they don't believe that you're honest and trustworthy. Do you understand why they feel that way?

CLINTON:  Well, I think when you are subjected to the kind of constant barrage of attacks that are largely fomented by and coming from the Right and...

That got 2 reactions here at Meadhouse: 1. She's doing "vast right-wing conspiracy" again!, and 2. "Fomented"! What do "everyday people" think of a somebody who says "fomented"? What do they think "fomented" means... something about foam?

KEILAR:  But do you bear any responsibility for that?

CLINTON:  - well, I - you know, I can only tell you that I was elected twice in New York against the same kind of onslaught.  

She's choosing to answer a question that the question reminds her of. The question asked is: Why do people feel you're dishonest and untrustworthy? The question she's answering is: Can you get elected even though people think you're dishonest and untrustworthy?

I was confirmed and served as secretary of state and I think it's understandable that when questions are raised people maybe are thinking about them and wondering about them. 

That acknowledges that people have feelings, not why they have them.

But I have every confidence that during the course of this campaign people are going to know who will fight for them...

Again, she deflects us to the future. She'll be telling us things later.

... who will be there when they need them and that's the kind of person I am.  And that's what I will do, not only in a campaign but as president.

She comes in for a landing with the most generic material possible. Keiler tries again (to seem like a tough journalist and not the chosen softballer?)):

KEILAR:  Trusting someone to fight for them and trusting someone, these are two different things. Do you see any role that you've had in the sentiment that we've seen, where people are questioning whether you're trustworthy?

CLINTON:  I can only tell you, Brianna, that this has been a theme that has been used against me and my husband for many, many years...

She already onlytold Brianna what she told Brianna she could onlytell.

She's honest enough.   

Likeable enough and honest enough. That's the secret slogan.

UPDATE: James Taranto quotes my "Let Nixon be Nixon" remark and I question whether there ever was a catchphrase "Let Nixon be Nixon."

"As we get closer to the convention, if it is a stalemate, everybody will be going after everybody’s delegates."

“All the rules will be going out the window.” So says a senior Clinton official, according to Politico. Look out, Obambi, Hillary is working out ways to steal your pledged delegates — the delegates you think you already won in the primaries and caucuses.

Pledged delegates are not really pledged at all, not even on the first ballot. This has been an open secret in the party for years, but it has never really mattered because there has almost always been a clear victor by the time the convention convened....

“Delegates are NOT bound to vote for the candidate they are pledged to at the convention or on the first ballot,” a recent DNC memo states. “A delegate goes to the convention with a signed pledge of support for a particular presidential candidate. At the convention, while it is assumed that the delegate will cast their vote for the candidate they are publicly pledged to, it is not required.”

Should we conclude that the Clinton campaign is evil? Or is this just evidence of the campaign's competence, that it's exploring all the permutations of the fight for the nomination? The Clinton aid prefaces his remark with: "I swear it is not happening now."

Ha. That reminds me of one of my favorite Nixon quotes: "We could do it, but that would be wrong."

Did Nixon really say that, and what was he talking about? I've been using that "Nixon quote" for decades, because I think it's so funny. It reveals a mind that thinks through the wrong things that could be done and even says them out loud — then, realizing how bad it sounds tries to nullify the statement with a terse invocation of morality. Ah! It seems the original quote is: "We could kill him. But that would be wrong."

On the White House Tapes, Nixon and his advisors were discussing what they should do about one of these enemies.... And Nixon said, "We could kill him." During the David Frost - Richard Nixon interviews, Nixon complained bitterly that we didn't get to listen to what he said next, presumably because it had been accidentally erased. What he claimed to have said next was, "But that would be wrong."

I like that. It's a much better quote, that way: "We could kill him, but that would be wrong."

Searching the web to verify the old quote, I hit upon "He Was a Crook," Hunter S. Thompson's essay on the death of Richard Nixon:

It was Richard Nixon who got me into politics, and now that he's gone, I feel lonely. He was a giant in his way. As long as Nixon was politically alive -- and he was, all the way to the end -- we could always be sure of finding the enemy on the Low Road. There was no need to look anywhere else for the evil bastard. He had the fighting instincts of a badger trapped by hounds. The badger will roll over on its back and emit a smell of death, which confuses the dogs and lures them in for the traditional ripping and tearing action. But it is usually the badger who does the ripping and tearing. It is a beast that fights best on its back: rolling under the throat of the enemy and seizing it by the head with all four claws.

Hey... badger! That reminds me: I've got to go vote in the Wisconsin primary.

But, Hillary and Hillary people: Think about your legacy. Maybe this Hunter S. Thompson quote could help you think clearly:

If the right people had been in charge of Nixon's funeral, his casket would have been launched into one of those open-sewage canals that empty into the ocean just south of Los Angeles. He was a swine of a man and a jabbering dupe of a president. Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning. Even his funeral was illegal. He was queer in the deepest way. His body should have been burned in a trash bin.

UPDATE: The Clinton campaign says: I'm not a crook.

If "every campaign is... a narrative," what's Hillary Clinton's narrative?

Mickey Kaus looks at John Ellis's idea, which he gleaned from the Nixon campaign. Ellis says:

She knows what it's like to get her head kicked in every day, day after day after day, for months and years on end. She endures....

...I think her narrative is not "she's inevitable because she's experienced and the others are too light." I think her narrative is "formidable, battle-scarred, flawed, but important." I think [Hillary strategist Mark] Penn thinks he can micro-target to victory. I think they need a large macro theme that enables people to vote for Hillary, even though they don't want to.

It's obviously late now. This is work they should have done in 2006 and 2007: setting the context for "understanding" her candidacy ...

Ha ha. They need to explain to us how to vote for Hillary, even though we don't want to.

But I'm not really laughing. Actually, I picture myself doing exactly that. I don't like her, and I don't want to vote for her, but somehow, I assume that in the end I will. I'm resisting now — look at all my recent Hillary posts — but it's probably because I see myself ending up doing what I don't want to do.

So Mickey says:

Campaigning as tough, battle-scarred fixture, etc. would certainly serve Hillary better, should she lose Iowa and New Hampshire, than campaigning as "inevitable." It seems entirely possible... that primary voters might feel like resurrecting Ms. Durability after she's suffered a bit by way of a New Hampshire loss. (Making her suffer a bit might even be the point...) But there's no point in resurrecting a failed Ms. Inevitability. ...

So "enduring" is the new "inevitable." It's all "inevitable" can be when you're not — you know — inevitable. Plus, "enduring" seems almost charmingly complex. Which has that pseudo-warmth that's as warm as you can be when you're ... Nixonian.



(By the way, where the video of Rick Lazio invading Hillary's space in that old debate? Is it not available on line? If not, why not?)

ADDED: The video is hard to find, but Ruth Anne Adams found "The Daily Show"'s version of it.

"If Hillary frames herself as the school-marm disciplinarian..."

Andrew Sullivan thinks she might do well. In left-handed compliment style, he adds: "It's ... an image more suited to her actual personality than anything resembling charisma."

That reminds me of the old saying: "Let Nixon be Nixon." Which worked.

Bringing back the Vietnam protest ethos.

Should Democrats bring back the Vietnam era anti-war imagery, with folksinging gatherings and get-out-now rhetoric? I can understand wanting to express yourself that way if that's what you feel, but you know it didn't win elections back then. There were some intense events, like the Democratic Convention of 1968, but then Nixon got elected.

Armando at DailyKos quotes Hillary Clinton — "She said the United States should remain in Iraq until peace can be maintained by the Iraqi people, saying the mission was part of the 'long struggle against terrorism' by the U.S. 'The threat of terrorism is as close as our daily commute'" — and agonizes:

So Hillary agrees with Cheney while the Republican Hagel is at war with Cheney. And we Democrats are supposed to smile for that? Not this Democrat. Finally, if you believe success in Iraq is "too important" how in God's name can you keep quiet while this unbelievable group of lying idiots bumbles their way to utter disaster?

But Clinton has just figured out what it takes to get elected. Flipping out like this makes it hard for Democratic candidates to position themselves to be trusted to take over from those "lying idiots" who are driving you crazy. If you're big on learning the lessons of Vietnam, there's that one too.

In the 170 comments so far on Armando's post, the name "Nixon" does not appear, interestingly enough. Perhaps Kos readers are too young to remember. But even if Nixon isn't in your personal memories, you must remember the last election, which Kerry lost because he couldn't inspire trust about how he would work toward success in Iraq. All the noisy anti-war types got out in front of him, and he could never manage to find a way to talk to those of us who demand that the President win the war.

But I'm not saying people like Armando should shut up for the good of party politics. I hate party politics myself. People should express what they think about the war. Squelching yourself for years in the hope of helping Hillary isn't worth it. I would just hope that people try to think clearly about the importance of success in Iraq. Don't be blinded by your hatred of Bush. If Kerry had won, we'd still be struggling and making mistakes there. And if Gore had become President in 2000, he would have had to do something about Iraq sooner or later. So express yourself, but face up to the difficulties of the real world. Think hard before going into full Vietnam peacenik mode.